Capital Audiofest (CAF) 2017 & CanMania Show Report
Bryston Audio System
CAF 2017 Show Report By Kemper Holt

  The first thing I noticed walking into the Bryston room was the layout, they chose to put the speakers on the long wall and have us sit in the nearfield. My first impression was I'm too close and was this a wise decision? Turns out it was a very astute choice as the room sounded great. Bryston was showing an active loudspeaker, The Bryston Middle T Actives ($6420/pr) which unlike the norm does not have the amps and active crossovers built, they are outboard.

Performing the necessary tasks were a pair of Bryston 21B Cubed 3 channel amps ($10,495 each), BAX-1 active three-way crossover ($3,495), BP 17 Cubed preamp (3,995), BDA-3 DAC (3,495), BDP Player (3,495), all plugged into a BIT 20 conditioner (3,995).

The old adage about audio companies specializing in a particular vein of equipment and unable to make top notch equipment in all categories falls flat on it's face here. In an all Bryston system, a great deal of synergy applied itself and the room just made music. The low bass on Boz Scagg's "Thanks to You" came through as powerful and deep almost matching the megabuck room, tight and had the true low extension that makes you take notice. I played some tracks from Paul Simon's Graceland and the result was spectacular. The speakers vanished, the coral parts were displayed on a vast soundstage including height, nice individualization of voices, percussion dynamic and exciting, natural tone, and Paul's voice sounded as it should.

A guest put on an orchestral recording that really showed off the system, big soundstage, nothing tied to the speakers, explosive dynamics, natural string tone, horns were particularly real sounding, I was brought into the music and thoroughly enjoyed being engaged into just relaxing and letting the piece wash over me, wonderful room.

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